


To Love Another Person

by pylades



Category: Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pylades/pseuds/pylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosette will exchange her bridal finery for mourning gowns soon enough but tonight ... </p>
<p>Tonight, she is still a bride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Love Another Person

**Author's Note:**

> ....wait, we all know Valjean dies, right? (So, yeah, there's your MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH tag)

Marius is so kind and so gentle. 

He holds her in his arms as gently as she once held dear little Catherine. As if she - Cosette - were formed of china, too. 

But she isn't china. She - Cosette - was formed of things stronger than her girlhood doll. She knew struggle and loss, but more important than those things. She knows love. She knows devotion. Though she has been weeping for hours, she is strong.

Papa's letter, his last words, still echo in her mind. 

_To love another person is to see the face of God ..._

Oh, Cosette believes that. She saw God and His Grace in Papa's rare smiles. And she sees Him in Marius' dear form. 

Her Papa is dead. But she is alive. And Marius is alive. And this is still their wedding night. 

She reaches up to trace the curve of Marius' cheek, smiling through her tears as she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. She knows that he will not press her, for she is mourning and they have an entire life ahead -

\- And perhaps because ... he is frightened. And she's frightened, too. But Cosette loves him madly, has loved him since she first saw him standing outside her garden. She knows love and loss (tonight is proof enough of that), but she has not lost Marius. He's strong and solid to touch (and oh, she will touch him, she will).

Cosette will exchange her bridal finery for mourning gowns soon enough but tonight ... 

Tonight, she is still a bride.


End file.
